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There is a rich history of Gestalt practice in the UK which is often held only in the memories of individuals, which others (especially newcomers) may not have easy access to.

We would like to build a comprehensive ‘family history’, to record stories of how Gestalt has developed in the UK. It will trace our history of how we’ve reached the stage we are at now, and support our collective and continuing engagement as a Gestalt Community. These details will be developed into a timeline wall mural telling our story – and potentially other creative outputs in the future.

Judy Graham has kindly offered to start the process by creating a questionnaire. We warmly invite all gestalt practitioners (not only UKAGP members) to complete it, and share their own ‘Gestalt history’ for future posterity.

This “hands-on” workshop caters for counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists, play therapists and other professionals working with children in a therapeutic/pastoral capacity.

It may particularly interest those familiar with gestalt therapy* and/ or wanting to explore their own relationship with creativity and playfulness.
The course draws inspiration from the pioneering work of gestalt therapist, Dr Violet Oaklander whose approach puts the relationship between therapist and child at the centre of the therapeutic process. Children tend to express feelings through image and metaphor. When therapists working with young people can engage in a dialogue using expressive arts this can be invaluable.

Children use their ‘contact’ skills (senses, body, feeling and intellect) as relational tools. Troubled youngsters struggle to make good contact with teachers, parents, peers or themselves, tending to restrict healthy expression of their emotions. Many possess a poor sense of self. Therapy facilitates exploration of emotional blockages, helping children regain contact with their emotions, body and natural ability to cope.
Residential, Oxfordshire, April 4-8 2016

An informal and explorative meeting took place on 4th July during the UKAGP conference in Nottingham in response to the wish to create a formal structure that includes the voices of all UK Gestalt organisations to help realise the aims and objectives of UKAGP.

When UKAGP was formed, the Organising Committee was intended to fulfil this need, but over the past seven years it has changed and developed with new members not necessarily holding the history, knowledge or connections with the various Training Institutes as did the original committee.

There was general recognition that there is a need for a new grouping to act as a consultative group to the Organising Committee of the UKAGP, made up of delegates from all the Gestalt Institutes and Organisations in the UK. It was anticipated that an arrangement of this kind would in itself create a space for dialogue and collaborative cooperation between training institutes and organisations in the UK and in the process enable a structure for two-way feedback and input.

Delegates would be in a position to:

Reflect and represent developments in the practice of their organisations, and

Support and enable the UKAGP Chair to participate from a more informed and legitimate place as representative of the UK’s National Organisation for Gestalt Therapy (NOGT) at the twice-yearly meetings of the EAGT General Board.
It is proposed that the group be convened by the Organising Committee of the UKAGP and meet twice a year in the summer and winter to alternate with the EAGT General Board meetings in March and September. It is anticipated that the meetings would be hosted in rotation by participating Institutes and organisations, and that the first meeting would be in the month of January.

Invitations outlining the purpose and remit of the group are being sent to all organisations to nominate delegates to the group.

With Susan Gregory and Peter Philippson

The British Gestalt Journal Seminar Day is an annual event bringing together friends, readers, writers, editors and reviewers of the journal.

In a day of participation and conversation, Susan Gregory and Peter Philippson will lead attendees in a series of embodied activities which are at the heart of Gestalt therapy practice and theory. Experience, inherently body-grounded, is what we Gestalt therapists work with – helping our clients sense, feel, experiment with, and grow as embodied human beings in relation with others. Throughout the BGJ day, we will experiment with breath, movement, and the felt-sense of creative adjusting. We hope everyone will have an opportunity to reflect upon their own practices, and to connect with one another around ways to move forward in living and working as Gestalt therapists.

In addition to a healthy and tasty organic gluten-free lunch participants are invited to support the British Gestalt Journal by baking gluten free cakes to share with the community. Savoury food will be provided by Dora Johnston from the Home Grown Catering Company (https://thehomegrowncateringcompany.wordpress.com).

5.5 Continuous Professional Development hours will be offered to all attendees.

Thankyou to all the organisers for all your hard work arranging such a successful conference! I found the weekend very enriching and arrived home very tired – but happy.

The atmosphere was just right and I met some new people, as well as catching up with colleagues I hadn’t seen for years.

The setting, and accomodation worked well for me. The weather was perfect for once. How did you manage to organise this?

Both keynote speakers were most stimulating and I appreciated the way in which they were part of the conference. I thought Jaqui was
courageous sharing how she had come to invite both Michael and Hugh and for me this added greater depth to their work.

One highlight is going outside and becoming aware of the impact of trees on the environment.

It was difficult deciding which workshops to attend, as so many were inviting. I wasn’t disappointed with the ones I chose and that seemed to be the verdict of others I spoke to.

My experience of the ‘Engaging Our Community’ conference began almost a year ago, when I and a few other committee members were busy with the final two of twelve months work preparing the one day ‘Enriching Our Community’ conference in London. I realised that we would only have nine months to organise the 2015 conference, and that a new structure would need to be created in order to share the workload amongst more people and make it a less stressful and more satisfying experience.

As I reflect back, from the initial proposal to form a Conference Organising Group (COG) separate from the Organising Committee, and the search for people to join it, to my role as Programme Lead on the COG and the rich conversations and explorations I enjoyed whilst developing the theme, structure and final programme, I begin to appreciate the extent and range of my journey and engagement with the gestalt community.

Working alongside a large group of colleagues was successful in achieving the intended outcome of sharing the workload, and also provided the many mutual learning experiences which come from collaborating on a challenging project together. As well as the structure and business like planning of the COG, I have also appreciated the unexpected pleasure of making connections with new people and deepening existing relationships, and realise that we will always have this shared experience.

I have an image of many colourful threads weaving their way through the Gestalt community, creating unexpected patterns through contact with others. Some vivid patterns that stand out are early discussions with Toni Gilligan around the different circles of engagement and the wider fields we are all part of; a Skype exploration across the seas with Michael Clemmens sparking off ideas and noticing excitement at the emerging shapes of commonality; re-meeting Hugh Pidgeon with a few close friends and engaging in a rich multi layered dialogue interspersed with watching his insightful film which fed an inspiration to invite him to participate in the conference.

And then, a couple of hours before the conference began, meeting with those whom I had invited to lead the large group pieces (Toni, Michael, Hugh, Belinda Harris and Adam Kincel), gathering together as a group for the first time. We met to articulate with each other the particular colours of the threads we each brought, and to notice where and how they have and can meet each other, and noticing the patterns that we create in the process. Some of the colours that stood out for me were our shared interest in the marginalised and those who do not feel supported to speak, and of how the organisation can support different voices; how we define another in order to feel that we belong, of owning our shadows; and how language can be in service of the pre-reflective.

It was from a desire to try to share some of this rich pre-conference engagement, dialogue and dance, that I faced my intense dislike of public speaking and chose to introduce the three large group sessions from a personal perspective. I pushed myself right to the tip of my growing edge, only just resisting the magnetic pull to turn and run from the room. I knew that whatever words I chose to speak I would think that they were not enough, that they hadn’t done justice to the experience or the people or the unfolding journey, and hadn’t illustrated the particular colourful patterns our threads had woven together. However, I wanted to try to complete the circle of that gestalt, and trusted that people would hear my intention.

I have attended many conferences as a participant only, and it is with some fondness that I remember the freedom and lightness of those experiences, as compared to one where participation is very much secondary to organisation. However, I know that I will continue to integrate my learning from this experience into other aspects of my life, and I can warmly encourage anyone who has not yet taken part in the creation of such an event to consider doing so.

Something that feels provocative and somewhat un-allowed became clear during and reflecting on, what was for me an enjoyable, contactful and liberating, conference.

This is about how the ‘relational version’ of Gestalt has become the accepted doctrine and in doing so is ‘drowning out’ the ‘individualistic version’.

As I understand it, the limitation of the individualistic perspective is that people hide their emotional insecurity behind self-sufficiency and then projected the unacceptable insecurity onto the other in the form of blame of some form or other. So, attending to the relationship and the “field” is wonderful in opening up and sharing of that insecurity, it makes the “ground” safer, more open and inclusive.

What I see now though is the tendency to hide behind this place where everything is “relational” and “of the field” with an avoidance of facing insecurity. “It’s not just me, it’s co-created”, can form an escape from taking responsibility for our own insecurity.

There is a huge difference between blame and responsibility. Blame is always a projection of badness, self-responsibility is an essential and profound and always ongoing aspect of our journey.

And this is the point that I see as getting lost, from the individualistic perspective our journey is about reconciling and finding our freedom from insecurity, with all the spiritual dimensions implicit in that.

This is not to deny in any way the validity of the relational perspective with its journey of moving towards meeting, towards “I-Thou”, towards “I am you and you are me” with its own implicit spiritual dimensions. As well as of course our need to expand our awareness of the all the contexts we are a part of.

Our defences around facing our insecurity are insidious and powerful, inveigling us to use whatever philosophical cover we can find to support our avoidance. This is a plea for both the individualistic and relational aspects of our world to be encompassed and validated in their own right, “both, not either or” (as per Ken Wilber’s “quadrants”). Both are needed for our journey of ever more deeply opening our hearts and meeting the other.

My story of this conference involved a lot of dialogue without words. Communicating, making contact with my hands, a wall, trees, crystals, clay,.. Moving with other people, engaging, experimenting…

And some people really spoke to me! …to that part that has no words and that was tentatively emerging. I felt touched, moved, in pain at times or full of longings or sadness.

I was drawn to workshops that helped me to be more in touch with that part, relate with and from that part.. allow it to be.

When I looked at my piece of clay after allowing my hands to flow with that part, it looked like a nice, solid, protective dome – not quite ready to take shape, but something was slowly emerging. And I could choose to be open or closed.

According to Daniel Stern (1985, The Intersubjective World of the Infant) emergent relatedness is the first domain of relatedness which develops from birth to 2 months old, when the infant takes in and begins to organise sensory experience.

In our process group, I remembered my history as well as that of my parents’. My parents are children of the war, born in 1943 in Germany. What must it be like for a baby to be born and “emerge” into a world of terror, chaos, deprivation and constant fear of survival? Maybe already absorbing angst and anguish in the womb?

My father escaped from what is now Poland when he was 2 years old with his mother and sister – no father anymore and no home. This is pretty much all that I know as it was hardly talked about. Not talked about and yet I feel I am beginning to understand as I give those parts of me that have no voice a chance of expression and relating.

“Like many others, I imagine, I am full of admiration for all who worked to keep us informed about the conference at every step, and who were responsible for making it work so well. My very warmest thanks.

Contact, Awareness and Response-ability are the old bedrock slogans of Gestalt, all amply exercised over the days in Nottingham, consolidating the sense of community I feel when I am with other people who have taken on Gestalt values as they variously interpret them.

My workshop was about using the huge range of skills that were present in that gathering, not just for the repair work of therapy, important as that is, but in the larger community, promoting right livelihood in settings where the words counselling and therapy are perhaps not used, or dreaded.

Our community, in the title of the conference, could be seen as the Gestalt family itself, and that surely was the place to start. The more cheery and secure that place feels, the freer I hope people will feel to focus on gaps in happiness, gaps in know-how and coping in all age-groups and social settings, and find how to intervene with the creativity Gestalt encourages.

Bother. This sounds like a sermon, and was only meant to convey my excitement.”